A Worthy Quote

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

--John Adams, To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 1798

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield."

--George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? It is feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

--Tench Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1788

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"It is more convenient to prevent the passage of a law, than to declare it void after it has passed."

--James Madison, to Thomas Jefferson, 1787

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."

--James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1790

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"It is our duty to endeavor always to promote the general good; to do to all as we would be willing to be done by were we in their circumstances; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. These are some of the laws of nature which every man in the world is bound to observe, and which whoever violates exposes himself to the resentment of mankind, the lashes of his own conscience, and the judgment of Heaven. This plainly shows that the highest state of liberty subjects us to the law of nature and the government of God."

--Samuel West, On the Right to Rebel Against Governors, 1776

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"A constitution defines and limits the powers of the government it creates. It therefore follows, as a natural and also a logical result, that the governmental exercise of any power not authorized by the constitution is an assumed power, and therefore illegal."

--Thomas Paine, Constitutions, Governments, and Charters, 1805

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfill the ends of government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which cannot but have the most favourable influence on the rights on Mankind. If on the other side, our governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate, will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them; and their patrons and friends exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation."

--James Madison, Address to the States, 1783

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done, if we are always doing."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Martha Jefferson, 1787

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power."

--Thomas Jefferson, The Kentucky Resolutions, 1799

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives."

--John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them."

--Benjamin Franklin, letter to Collinson, 1753

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind."

--James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Besides, to lay and collect internal taxes in this extensive country must require a great number of congressional ordinances, immediately operation upon the body of the people; these must continually interfere with the state laws and thereby produce disorder and general dissatisfaction till the one system of laws or the other, operating upon the same subjects, shall be abolished."

--Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, 1787